The Power Of Podcasting To Fight The Patriarchy

Like much of media, podcasting is dominated by male voices. Although women make up nearly half of all podcast listeners, the vast majority of podcasts are led by men. As of this writing, only 21 of the top 100 podcasts on iTunes are hosted by women, and nine have women co-hosts.

In 2014, I launched my own podcast primarily because I saw a gender imbalance among the loud, dominating voices in my own industry and wanted to give women in digital a platform for sharing their perspectives, their insights, and their stories.

And I wasn’t alone in feeling this way.

Giving women a voice

Across industries, women have been identifying gaps in conversations and using podcasts as a way to make their voices—and the voices of other women—heard.

“I felt that female artists were woefully under-represented in mainstream radio,” says Bree Noble, independent musician and creator of Women of Substance Radio. “Even in 2018, you can still listen to the singer/songwriter channel on iTunes for hours and hear not one woman. That needs to change.” To further provide support for female artists, she started a second podcast titled The Female Entrepreneur Musician. Says Noble,“My mission is to serve and support women who don’t fit into the music industry mold and empower them to build their own career like a business, like the entrepreneurs they are.”

Kathleen Shannon and Emily Thompson are the co-hosts of the podcast Being Boss and authors of the book Being Boss: Take Control of Your Work and Live Life on Your Own Terms releasing April 2018.

Being Boss

After Kathleen Shannon and Emily Thompson, two self-proclaimed “business besties,” started having behind-the-scenes conversations about their work and lives as business owners in creative fields, they decided to turn them into a podcast called Being Boss. “We were sharing our struggles and successes alike with each other and at one point we thought more creative entrepreneurs (who often work solo, by themselves all day long) could benefit from overhearing real talk about what it takes to do the work and be boss,” say Shannon and Thompson.

And this was especially true for women. “Creative entrepreneurship gives the potential to redefine the rules of what it means to be self-employed that can benefit all of humankind, which especially appeals and lends freedom to women. It gives us room to plant ourselves and flourish on our own accord as we refuse to play to systems that need overhauling...Women have a lot of power to make big shifts but it's only going to happen if we start talking (and living!) out loud.”

Creating a space to talk about the real issues

For many female hosts, podcasts serve as a place for talking about the issues that are important to them—and to women everywhere. In 2012, writer Ashley Milne-Tyte recognized that few people were talking about women in the workplace. “It was a niche subject, not an international topic of conversation the way it is now,” she recalls. “I was fascinated by the gap between women’s educational achievements and how far they got at work. But nearly all the discussion around women’s status at work revolved around motherhood. I knew there was more to it than that.” So to help fill in the missing piece of the conversation, she launched The Broad Experience, a podcast addressing some of the biggest issues women in the workplace face today, including race, class, sexual harassment—and everything in between.

“There are so many women and gender non-conforming folks who are creating amazing podcasts, so I want to be clear: we’re out there and we’re creating good content,” says Bridget Todd, host of the podcast Stuff Mom Never Told You. “Unfortunately, the same issues that plague the film, television, and literary industries are also unfolding in the podcast industry. Women and gender non-conforming folks are telling our stories, but all too often those stories go without a platform.” On SMNTY, Todd and her guests discuss the challenges women face, along with strategic solutions to further women’s lives, careers, and activism.

“The show we create tries to explore issues from an explicitly intersectional feminist lens because we don’t really have an option of doing anything else,” says Todd. “We also try to keep in mind that not all women share our own particular life stories, backgrounds, or experiences. I want to build a community where all women—black women, trans women, disabled women, undocumented women, poor women, rural women—all feel heard, seen, and affirmed.”

Of course, we can’t just have these conversations among ourselves. An effort to counterbalance the patriarchy requires having an open dialogue between women and men. Comedian Janet Hyde is known among her colleagues as being an outspoken feminist. “I'm always ready to heckle or call a guy out if I think a joke crosses a line,” she says, “but I'm really more interested in exploring that with guys, and helping them understand how it feels to be the only woman in a dark basement when a man tells a rape joke while making direct eye contact with you.”

To create a space for this exploration, Hyde launched the podcast Dude Talks to a Lady, interviewing male comics about their jokes about women, while also opening up conversations about topics including sex, dating, and feminism. Says Hyde, “With this podcast, I'm less interested in calling out sexism and more concerned with digging into how internalized misogyny influences our senses of humor and worldview, and how we can start to unpack all that.”

Changing the ratio

As more women infiltrate the male-dominated world of podcasting, they’re inspiring and showing the way for other female hosts. And to those women who are thinking of starting a show of their own, don’t let the popularity contest deter you. Brushing off podcast rankings, Shannon and Thompson say, “iTunes algorithms are a mystery to everyone—that top 100 could be based on just about anything. So we try to not let it get our panties in a bunch; we just keep on going, doing our thing. But we're definitely dreaming of a more equal world where we don't even have to go there, and now is the time for women to step up, use their voices, share their stories, and support each other by subscribing and leaving ratings and reviews.”

“We live in a society that often tells women our voices and our stories don’t matter. I really internalized this and regrettably, I spent a big portion of my life thinking that I didn’t have anything valuable to add to the conversation,” says Todd. “From writers, to filmmakers, to podcasters, we need more women telling our stories. I can’t tell you how many times podcast networks or advertisers have told me they wish there were more women led shows out there. It’s dire. If you’re a woman who has something to say, don’t spend any time worrying that what you have to say isn’t valuable. We need your voice.”